ICCA publishes 2017 country and city rankings based on estimated total number of participants

Cities holding the most meetings also holding the largest ones: Barcelona continues to shine in first place.

As part of its 2017 Statistics Report on the international association meetings market, ICCA has published its country and city rankings by estimated total number of participants. The U.S.A. and Barcelona are the top country and top city in 2017 respectively: they both held the most meetings and hosted the most participants. The public abstract of this report is now available.

Top cities hold largest meetings with most delegates

The cities holding the most meetings in 2017 are also those holding the largest ones. The top ten cities for both the total number of meetings and estimated total number of participants in 2017 remains the same, with the exception of Amsterdam. Whilst the Dutch capital fell to 16th place in 2017 for total number of meetings held, the city places in ninth with 75,578 total estimated participants in 2017. This indicates Amsterdam held less meetings in 2017, but hosted larger ones in comparison to other destinations.

Whilst regular top ten placeholders Vienna and Paris are in joint second place in the 2017 city rankings by number of meetings, Paris drops to third place when it comes to number of participants, hosting 111,725 in 2017 compared to Vienna’s 113,891. Several cities who previously held top ten spots in 2016 have not continued to do so in 2017 according to the latest statistics: Seoul, Copenhagen, Rome and Beijing all hosted smaller meetings in 2017 and dropped out of the top ten. Notable climbers include Paris, Barcelona and Singapore, who moved from seventh to third place, third to first place, and tenth to sixth place respectively. Barcelona enjoyed a profitable 2017, claiming first place in both city rankings (by number of meetings and estimated total number of participants).

ICCA 2017 city ranking

U.S.A. continues to dominate 2017 country rankings

The U.S.A. continues to dominate the country rankings, holding first place in the country rankings by both number of meetings and estimated total number of participants in 2017. Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom place in the top five by number of participants for another year. The United Kingdom drops from third place in 2016 to fifth, and Germany drops to third place from second. Spain climbs to second place from fifth with 327,996 participants in 2017, up from 217,724 participants in 2016. Italy falls out of the top five to sixth place in 2017, with France up to fourth place from holding seventh place in 2016.

The top five destinations held more meetings in 2017 with a higher number of participants compared to other destinations. All top five placeholders by number of participants place in the top five countries by number of meetings in 2017 apart from France, which ranks in sixth place.